Joanne Silberner reports on how our ideas about what is a
'good death'
have changed over time -- from the 1700's when death was everpresent and
intimate to the 20th century when it became what one historian called "the
new pornography". Today, we're in the middle of yet another shift -- "death
with dignity" is in. Our new heros are those who join the Hemlock Society
and organ donation is as de rigueur as recycling.

You can read the transcript:

LIANE HANSEN, HOST: On the subject of death there is no dearth
of information.

Bestselling books, such as "Transformed by the Light," "Hello
from Heaven," and "How We Die" are just the latest way for Americans
to seek answers to the meaning of death. Our fascination with the
symbols and rituals has been around for centuries.

And as NPR's Joanne Silberner reports, our ideas about death have
changed over time.

JOANNE SILBERNER, NPR REPORTER: Even though Michael Kibbee died
last March, he lives, in a way, on the Internet. His picture, details
of his life, and a quote from Plato are all posted at his Internet
memorial, at a site called "The World Wide Cemetery."

Kibbee, a Canadian engineer, founded the site in 1995, after he'd
learned he was dying of cancer. Anyone can post details of their
loved ones on the World Wide Web, visit the monuments and memorials,
even leave virtual flowers. It's death in the 90s.

Every age deals with death in its own way, which is why historian
Robert Wells (ph) of Union College has spent years studying Vale (ph)
Cemetery.

SOUND OF WIND

He stands amidst 54 acres of rolling hills land valleys set near
the heart of downtown Schenectady.

ROBERT WELLS, HISTORIAN, UNION COLLEGE: Look down to the left
down there. You can see a monument with a draped urn on it kind of
peeking up through the trees.

JOANNE SILBERNER: Vale is one of the oldest still-operating
cemeteries
in the country. Over the years it's served as a refuge, Wells says, a
cool, quiet, pleasant place to put things in perspective.

ROBERT WELLS: You're walking in the woods, surrounded by trees,
communing with nature. You've gotten out of the city of the living, the
hustle and bustle of everyday life and business. And then all of
a sudden, here's a brief reminder of your own mortality.

JOANNE SILBERNER: Vale reveals a lot about American cultural mores
and
how they've changed.

Wells started out studying how childbirth has changed over time.
He then studied marriage and family life, and that's taken him to the
end of life and the graves of Vale Cemetery.

He points out the oldest stone, which dates back to 1725.

ROBERT WELLS: You see a simple stone like this. It's nothing more
than
a piece of fieldstone like I can dig up in my backyard. The back side
has been kind of roughly shaped off into a rectangle. The back side
isn't smooth. The front side would have been smoothed off and an
inscription placed on it. But a very simple kind of chiseling.

JOANNE SILBERNER: In many parts of Europe as late as the early
1700s, the
custom was to bury almost everyone in mass, anonymous graves. But
the graves at Vale from that time demonstrate emerging American
individualism. A Puritan version to be sure, but individualism
nonetheless.

Wells's favorite headstone is that of a man named John Dunbar
(ph), a tavern keeper who died in 1736. Carved in the stone is a
skull with wings attached, and a prominent and eerie grin.

ROBERT WELLS: Winged death is the reminder that we are in fact
mortal.
And one of the common epitaphs of the middle of the 18th century was
"prepare for death and follow me."

And so, these are stones which are designed not only to record
the life of the person who's died, but to remind the reader that you,
too, are mortal. And so you'd better prepare for death.

JOANNE SILBERNER: Because death -- especially from disease or
accident
-- could appear at any time, and many people died young. But as life
got easier and religion lost some sway over peoples' lives, headstones got
less threatening, more ornate. In way, more comforting, says
Wells.

ROBERT WELLS: By the end of the 18th century you move away from
the
more kind of harsh puritan notion of predestination, to be condemned
to hell, to a gentler, more unitarian theology, where salvation is
more likely to be guaranteed.

And you can see this on the grave markers.

JOANNE SILBERNER: No more death's heads. The stones are light
instead
of dark. They're carved with angels and cherubs, willows and urns.
And on the children's graves: little lambs.

The epitaphs describe souls ascending into heaven; no longer the
dead ominously warning the living, but the living taking comfort from
the dead. Through the late 19th century, the stark facts of death
were not avoided by the living.

For his book, "Wisconsin Death Trip," Michael Lessy (ph) gathered
photographs and newspaper articles about death in a small Wisconsin
town.

MICHAEL LESSY, AUTHOR, "WISCONSIN DEATH TRIP": They died at
home. The corpse was photographed. And often the photograph was
placed in the family album, in the parlor, so that when people came to
visit, they would often go through the family album and use that as an
occasion to talk about the passing of that person.

JOANNE SILBERNER: And the bodies were kept at home in the front
parlor
for days. That's not to say people were quietly accepting or unafraid
of death. Quite the contrary, formal mourning commonly lasted a year.
There was also a real fear of being buried alive, with signaling
devices sometimes built into coffins, just in case.

When death came after a long illness, Lessy says, people took
what control they could.

MICHAEL LESSY: One could choreograph the end. One could arrange
to say the
proper goodbyes, be given the sacraments, be surrounded by your
family. You could ask to be forgiven. And then you could slip away.

JOANNE SILBERNER: It was the 19th century version of the good
death: at
home, choreographed, and personal.

MICHAEL LESSY: Probably the good death now is something that's
relatively painless and not too ugly.

JOANNE SILBERNER: Today, with the advent of high-tech medicine and
the
funeral industry, death has become less personal. The choreographer
is no longer the dying person but the death professionals -- the
doctor and the undertaker.

But many people feel it's gone too far. The reaction against
being kept alive by machines has given us living wills, so people can
take back control over the circumstances of their death.

At the extremes, the reaction has fueled movements for euthanasia
and physician-assisted suicide. And as better treatment for cancer and
AIDS and other diseases extend life, people now have a chance to
contemplate how they want to die.

MICHAEL LESSY: Some people say it's not the death that frightens
them,
it's the pain that precedes it. It's the helplessness that precedes
it. We want control, whether it's through a morphine drip or through
a combination of sedatives and asphyxia. We want to be able to say
now and not later, in this fashion and not in any other fashion,
certainly no pain. And, could we keep the bills down if possible?

JOANNE SILBERNER: With the cultural focus now more on how people
die,
graves and graveyards have faded in importance as the community's
connection between the living and dead.

You can see that in the newer headstones at Vale Cemetery.
They're getting smaller. There aren't many words on them. What
carvings there are have evolved. They reflect not messages about God
or grief, but instead how people define themselves.

Stones now bear engravings of automobiles, scales of justice, the
image of a wrestler, and in this hometown of General Electric, a set
of radio towers. And Wells points out a 20th century way to visit
graves.

SOUNDBITE OF A CAR DRIVING

ROBERT WELLS: We see here -- this is on the edge of the cemetery,
a
newer area, where more recent graves -- and it's very much -- and it
reflects the automobile. And this is a drive-through section of the
cemetery.

And if you look off to the right there are vertical monuments.
And if you want to see a name or read an inscription you actually have
to get out of the car and walk your way back through.

Over here on the left, many of the monuments are small. They're
low and they're tilted, so that in fact you can read several rows
deep, and clearly don't have to get out of the car -- that you can
drive through the cemetery and visit the grave without leaving your
automobile.

JOANNE SILBERNER: Not many people come to Vale to walk around any
more.

SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS

JOANNE SILBERNER: These days Robert Wells is one of the few. The
only
community left here is the community of the dead. Maybe those who
would have visited are the ones who've turned to the World Wide
Cemetery on the Internet.

Cultural historian Michael Lessy says the age-old fascination
with death remains. Those's books on how to die a good death testify
to that. But still, people just sneaking peeks at it.

MICHAEL LESSY: As if it's one of those things that is both
absolutely
entrancing and completely indecent -- somewhat pornographic -- instead
of fully acknowledging it, accepting it, incorporating it into the
inevitability of our short lives, the denial feeds the curiosity, the
craving to know.

JOANNE SILBERNER: With high-tech medicine and minimalist
tombstones,
people are pushing death away. But with the books and television
shows and the Internet, people are pulling death towards themselves.

MICHAEL LESSY: I don't think the needs have changed. The fears
haven't
changed. The dreads haven't changed. The mystery, the enigma hasn't
changed. It's just how we fill up the empty space.

JOANNE SILBERNER: In the end, everything may have changed about
the way
we deal with death, except the fact of death itself.
Joanne Silberner, NPR News.